TONGUE-TIED TIMELESSNESS

TONGUE-TIED TIMELESSNESS

R.E.M.

Reckoning

(IRS)

Michael Davis

Describing simplicity ain't simple. Figuring out why one band with a simple approach makes it while others don't is even less so. But figuring is a brain process, and in regard to the basics of guitar-bass-drumsvoice, it's usually better to just trust your ears.

And lots of listeners are trusting their ears to R.E.M. these days, even though they don't sound anything like the brightly-colored butterflies being pinned down in most people's collections. Nope, these guys don't even like to pin themselves down, resisting attempts at categorizing at every turn. Oh sure, there are those who could tell you that R.E.M. approximates what the Byrds would have sounded like had Roger McGuinn split and Gene Clark stayed instead of vice versa, and though there's some validity there, what we're basically talking about here is a ringing quality to the guitars, a rough-gruff sensitivity to the singing, and a sense of timelessness about the music as a whole.

So where did their sound come from? Besides Athens, Ga.? Well, the band denies the Byrds' direct influence (although one of vocalist Michael Stipe's reported faves is B.O.C.'s rather Byrdsy 'Don't Fear The Reaper') but the group's covers of Lou Reed's 'Pale Blue Eyes' and Roger Miller's 'King Of The Road,' released as B-sides of their recent import singles, do indicate far-ranging roots. They also reveal the group's preference for songs that deal with people's real motivations instead of the romanticisms people often use to cover up their actions with, and Laura Levine

originals like 'Don't Go Back To Rockville' show that they're able to include these perceptions in their own material as well.

At least that's true on the material where you can understand the words; Stipe's classic mumbles are more decipherable here than on last year's all too appropriately titled Murmur but the lyrics still ring out loudest on the hooks. 'She's got pretty persuasion' and 'I'm sorry' have been floating around inside my head since 1 first heard this album, and I still don't know what they refer to. But the writing and playing set up the hooks so well that they just bypass your conscious brain and connect up with something deeper inside.

Actually, the most affecting moment on Reckoning, for me, doesn't involve any words at all. As the end of 'So. Central Rain,' the band solidifies its stomp and adds an overdubbed piano part as Stipe breaks into a moan evoking resignation, anger and melancholy. On paper, it looks like nothing; once you hear it, though, you're not likely to soon forget it. Kinda like R.E.M. itself.